Inside PennSound

Search PennSound

Wallace Stevens

PoemTalk #152, Discussing Wallace Stevens' "The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain," feat. Kate Colby, Tyrone Williams, Mónica de la Torre

Listen to the complete recording and read program notes at Jacket2.

PoemTalk #83, Discussing Wallace Stevens' “The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain,” feat. Susan Howe, Dee Morris, and Nancy Kuhl on December 29, 2014

Listen to the complete recording and read program notes at Jacket2

PoemTalk #14, discussing Stevens' "Not Ideas About the Thing but the Thing Itself," feat. Nada Gordan, Lawrence Joseph, and Charles Bernsein, February 3, 2009

Listen to the complete recording and read program notes for the episode at Jacket2.

Other poems, 2002

  1. So and So Reclining on Her Couch (2:09): MP3
  2. The Idea of Order at Key West (4:59): MP3
  3. The Life of a Poet (a prose note) (1:59): MP3
  4. The Theory of Poetry (a prose note) (2:47): MP3
  5. Infanta Marina (1:12): MP3
  6. Fabilau of Florida (0:50): MP3
  7. Bantams in Pine-Woods (0:55): MP3
  8. Nomad Exquisite (0:58): MP3
  9. Less and Less Human, O Savage Spirit (1:47): MP3
  10. From an Ordinary Evening in New Haven (Sections I, IX, XI, XII) (6:02): MP3
  11. Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour (2:06): MP3
  12. Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself (1:29): MP3

Vachel Lindsay and Wallace Stevens Centennial Observance, Library of Congress, November 27, 1979

"A. Walton Litz delivers a lecture, Wallace Stevens, the poetry of earth, in which he discusses the real and particular aspects of Stevens's poems and the influence of place and time on the poet's work. Anthony Howard follows with readings of ten poems by Vachel Lindsay." - Library of Congress Catalog

Complete recording (1:14:30): MP3

Reading, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1954

  1. Introduction (3:20): MP3
  2. Answer to Question on Poetic (0:20): MP3
  3. "A Pastoral Nun” (1:25): MP3
  4. "The Idea of Order at Key West” (5:21): MP3
  5. “Credences of Summer” (13:49): MP3
  6. Q & A (3:12): MP3
  7. “The Poem that Took the Place of a Mountain” (1:18) MP3
  8. “Vacancy in the Park” (1:37) MP3

Complete Recording (31:01):MP3

Reading at the 92nd Street Y, New York City, 1954

  1. The Idea of Order at Key West (4:52): MP3
    2.      alternate recording of "The Idea of Order at Key West" MP3
  2. Infanta Marina (1:09): MP3
  3. Fabliau of Florida (0:48): MP3
  4. Bantams in Pine-woods (0:52): MP3
  5. Nomad Exquisite (0:53): MP3
  6. Indian River (0:45): MP3

"Not Ideas About the Thing but the Thing Itself" is also featured on PoemTalk Episode 14.

The PennSound/Woodberry Poetry Room Wallace Stevens Audio Project

PennSound is pleased to present recordings of Wallace Stevens made for the Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard University, by permission of the Houghton Library's Woodberry Poetry Room (pictured below), and with special thanks to Susan Pyzynski, Peter Steinberg, David Ackerman, Don Share, and especially Christina Davis (Director of the Woodberry); and Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. & the Estate of Wallace Stevens.

1952 Reading at the New Lecture Hall, Harvard

This recording was made on May 1, 1952, during Stevens' reading in the New Lecture Hall, now called the Lowell Lecture Hall. The original recording is in two tape reels, housed at the Woodberry Poetry Room, Lamont Library, Harvard.

  1. Introduction by Richard Wilbur (3:32): MP3
  2. A Pastoral Nun (1:34): MP3
  3. Credences of Summer (13:41): MP3
         alternate recording of "Credences of Summer" (13:05): MP3
  4. Large Red Man Reading (1:58): MP3
  5. This Solitude of Cataracts (1:57): MP3
  6. In the Element of Antagonisms (1:20): MP3
  7. Puella Parvula (2:00): MP3
  8. To an Old Philosopher in Rome (7:32): MP3
  9. Two Illustrations That the World Is What You Make of It (2:01): MP3
  10. Vacancy in the Park (1:11): MP3
          alternate recording of "Vacancy in the Park" MP3
  11. The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain (1:36): MP3
          alternate recording of "The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain"MP3
  12. The World Is Larger in Summer (2:02): MP3
  13. Prologues to What Is Possible [second section] (2:38): MP3
  14. Looking Across the Fields and Watching the Birds Fly (4:35): MP3
  15. Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour (2:55): MP3

"The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain" is also featured on PoemTalk Episode 83.

Reading at the Trans-Radio Recording Studio, Boston, c. 1954

This recording was made at the Trans-Radio Recording Studio in Boston over the course of two recording sessions, the first on October 8, 1954; the second at a later unknown date. The recording was made on two reels divided as follows: reel 1, all poems, including "The Auroras of Autumn" parts 1-5; reel 2, only "The Auroras of Autumn," parts 6-10. (Note: It is not certain that the division of poems recorded at the two sessions coincides with the division of the two reels, which are housed at the Woodberry Poetry Room.)

See footnotes below for higher quality versions of several of these tracks, by way of Random House's 2002 The Voice of the Poet: Wallace Stevens.

"Not Ideas About the Thing but the Thing Itself" and "The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain" are also featured on PoemTalk Episode 14 and PoemTalk Episode 83 respectively.

  1. [Now it is September]a (0:18): MP3
  2. The Dwarf (1:50): MP3
  3. This Solitude of Cataracts (2:27): MP3
  4. The Woman in Sunshine (1:16): MP3
  5. The Green Plant (1:35): MP3
  6. The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain (1:39): MP3
  7. Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour (2:11): MP3
  8. How to Live, What to Do (2:02): MP3
  9. To the One of Fictive Musicb (3:48): MP3
  10. Not Ideas about the Thing But the Thing Itselfc,d (2:04): MP3
  11. The Auroras of Autumne (24:33): MP3
  • aThis 18-second recording is a false start on "The Dwarf."
  • bHigher quality version of "To the One of Fictive Music" (3:53): MP3
  • cHigher quality version of "Not Ideas about the Thing But the Thing Itself" (1:33): MP3
  • d"Not Ideas about the Thing But the Thing Itself" is available in text-audio alignment, here.
  • eParts VI–X of "Auroras of Autumn" were recorded on a second reel.
  • fHigher quality version of "The Auroras of Autumn" (23:13): MP3

Jan. 25, 1951 reading at the 92nd Street Y in New York

Stevens reads from "Credences of Summer" and "An Ordinary Evening in New Haven" (31:32): 92Y SoundCloud [external link]

[A higher quality reading from "Credences of Summer" (12:47): MP3]

Note: "The Life of the Poet" is a passage from "The Figure of the Youth as Virile Poet", section 5. One can find this excerpt in the Library of America "Collected Poetry and Prose," page 678. "The Theory of Poetry" is a passage from "The Relations Between Poetry and Painting", page 750 in the same volume.

"Not Ideas About the Thing but the Thing Itself" is also featured on PoemTalk Episode 14.

More Wallace Stevens on PennSound:

  1. Stevens on PennSound Daily
  2. Susan Howe on Stevens (7:50): MP3
  3. Robert Duncan, in memoriam of Wallace Stevens (3:23): MP3
  4. Jack Spicer on Stevens as a serial poet (3:27): MP3

Wallace Stevens on PennSound Daily

© 2014 the estate of Wallace Stevens. All rights to this recorded material belong to Peter Hanchak. Used with permission of Peter Hanchak. These sound recordings available for noncommercial and educational use only. Distributed by PennSound. We at PennSound are grateful to Peter Hanchak, grandson of Wallace Stevens, for his permission to make this material widely available. We also wish to thank our colleagues at Harvard's Woodberry Library, in particular Christina Davis, for their help with the recordings in the archive there; and John Serio.